Religion of Debt and Deficit

The looming crises of Debt and Deficit is a Religion vs Science issue.

Two opposing views of the same thing.  Creationism and Evolution.  Both sides look as the same universe world, have different views of how it was created and how it functions today.  Both sides agree that it exists today.  Religion (Creationist) have explanations that deal with presence in terms of objects that are supernatural.  Science has explanations that deal with objects that are natural.  Middle of the road positions accepts both simply on a degree of faith in both or a degree of structured thought that investigates and intelligently reconciles the two views.  Faith is a binary position.  Believe it or not.  Science has shades of grey that are managed in accordance with Scientific Method applied to discover the nature of things in a natural world.

National Debt and Deficit are human conceptual constructions in a Money World/Universe domain.  We created that domain out of nothing by summoning it into existence with our minds. Not in an instant or a day but over a long period of evolution over time to what it is today.  We created it, we own it.  Let me add that some own it more than others but that leads to branches of evolution trial and error that should die of extinction in a natural selection process.  Natural selection as a law in the Money Domain has, however, been bought off with money.  Therefore it has been perverted to unnatural behavior if its evolutionary objective is to serve the common good.

The Common Good is another of our conceptual creations that we also own in full.

National Debt and Deficit looms as a crises before us.  The Common Good will suffer if we choose a path of debt and deficit reduction.  That is the path of Money Fundamentalists.  Money Scientists advocate a path of increase in both Debt and Deficit.

Money Science, Economics is a paradox in the natural science world where it is a type of Science, a the social child of the parent Science, that deals with objects that are constructions of concepts not necessarily related to the physical world but perhaps modeled on it and investigates the nature of these objects using Scientific Method.  Compared to Religion it is a Science, it looks more like Science than Religion but has much more room for Religious Method based on faith beliefs to influence its concepts and functions.

We all feel the presence of the natural world and can know its existence in terms of the natural world.

We all feel the existence of money in our natural world and can know its existence in the natural world.  However, since money is an conceptual object created out nothing by our collective consciousness, it is hard to grasp.   Therefore complex explanations based on it structural conceptual realities that we also created out of nothing as the framework of the object Money are subject to explanation that are more religion than science.

Money is an ideology.  It has preachers and practitioners.  Some preachers practice it. (ministers of the ideology)   Some practitioners preach it.  (lay preachers).  Either or both may be altruistic.  Either or both may have various degrees of self interest.  The conceptual structure is built on self interest we all like money and use it for the common good.  Beyond a circumstantial degree of beneficial self interest benefit the ideology does not contribute to or destroys common good.

Preachers are preaching salvation through debt and deficit reductions which are circumstantially counter productive at public expense and beneficial to them and their cronies.   Some preachers of this salvation are victimized ignorant tools that are in fact teaching against their own self interest but believing it is good for them.

Money can be and do anything in the conceptual world that the creators of the concept and its design an implementation say it is and can do.  In that regard it is much like institutional religion.  The looming battle is a proxy war between ideologies of religion and science.  The two can be reconciled......or not.  Matters of faith must, in my opinion, retreat in the face of facts of science.  The foot soldiers that are the base of the fundamentalism of money based on religious belief in what they have been taught will not retreat. 

At the end of this battle we will find out if money is more of a religion or a science even if that science is a social science.  Hard science can and should see the objective benefit in coming to the defense of the dismal social science of money and economics.  We should all rely on and defend intelligence rather than faith that contradicts intelligence.

Faith says we should sacrifice.  In biblical times, food was sacrificed to God.  Perhaps even in times of starvation in belief that the God given cure was worth the price?  Counter productive from the standpoint of hungry but if they did it then it was done by the hungry people.  Or was the food of the hungry people sacrificed by those that were not hungry and got half of what was sacrificed?

Intelligence says we should not do things that are against our own collective self interest.

Exactly how does anyone get almost half of the country to vote against its own self interest?  If they can do that then getting them to support debt and deficit reduction will be a cake walk.  However, it should be much more difficult because it is dealing with science that is more scientific than political science.  Fundamental faith has no regard for science, soft science nor even hard science.  Simple faith in what they think money is and how it works is enough for most people to contradict the teaching of a soft science.

If I am a seller of snake oil I would choose to sell it to an ideological fundamentalist market that is predisposed to believe on faith everything they are told.  They are the ones that will not only buy but promote what has been sold to them with their testimonials of its glorious benefits.

Spending more and increasing debt as a way out of our national economic problem is going to be a hard sell.  It is counter-intuitive to logic as well as faith based moral and even religious concepts that equate excess debt and deficit as bad on all levels of the economy that must be resolved by spending less and paying off debt.

The most elegant way to skin a cat is to induce it to skin itself.  To get it to jump out of its own skin.  How to do that?  Simply scare it sufficiently and it will jump out of its own skin and into the frying pan.

The manner in which the skinning was done is the key to it all.  The delightful dish among the dining aristocracy served up to them by peasants may well be themselves.  They beauty is that the 1% will not realize that is they who skinned themselves to make the meal they are feasting on.

How could it be their rabbit on the platter if they did not skin it?  How was the skinning done?

That is the difference between royalty and a clever peasantry that finally turns the tables.

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism today:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/11/peter-orszag-of-bank-welfare-queen-citigroup-is-selling-catfood-futures-hard.html

Just as the neocons laid in wait since the 1980s before they were able to take us all on a wild, costly, and hugely destructive ride in the Middle East, this crowd of true believers (lead by billionaire Pete Peterson) has been similarly engaged in a long-term campaign and looks poised to unleash its own version of adventurism.
Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/11/peter-orszag-of-bank-welfare-queen-citigroup-is-selling-catfood-futures-hard.html#gsjuCjpoqRxKSwrO.99